Ashton to present plans for diplomatic service

Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign policy chief, is to present her plans for the Union’s future diplomatic corps to member states’ foreign ministers in Cordoba, Spain, today. The European External Action Service (EEAS) will be the most controversial subject at the two-day informal meeting, at which ministers will discuss the Middle East, the Western Balkans and emerging actors in world politics such as China and Brazil.

Member states’ ambassadors had a first discussion on Ashton’s outline for the new service earlier this week. One diplomat said that the purpose of today’s discussion was to “line up” the ministers behind the plan, which will take away responsibilities from the European Commission that the Commission wanted to retain, for example in the areas of neighbourhood policy and international development, and move them over to the EEAS.

One EU source said that Ashton would tell ministers at the meeting that “they should take collective responsibility for what they have created”, referring to the fact that they agreed to create the new service as part of the Lisbon treaty.

In a letter to Ashton dated Wednesday (3 March), David Miliband and Carl Bildt - foreign ministers of the United Kingdom and Sweden, respectively -said they were “concerned” about the “inter-institutional struggles” currently taking place on the EEAS. “You should know that you have our solid support” in balancing the influences of member states, the Commission and the Council of Ministers on the new service, they wrote.

The letter also said that the relationship with emerging powers and economies should be a focus of the new service and that the EU had to date not approached these relationships strategically enough. “We must be honest when we debate this at Cordoba and admit we must do better,” the two ministers wrote.

Miliband and Bildt called for “larger and more political” EU embassies in New Delhi, Islamabad, Beijing, Brasilia and Jakarta, a long-standing demand by the two countries. Diplomats have been complaining for years that the Commission maintained large embassies in relatively insignificant countries and neglected more strategic locations. The ministers wrote that it was “very important” for Ashton to oversee the management of the delegations rather than leaving it to the Commission. The EEAS “must have the keys to its own house”, the ministers wrote.

Ashton, who had been criticised for skipping a similar meeting of the EU’s defence ministers last month, is going to Cordoba after a three-day trip to Haiti.

The agenda for tomorrow foresees discussions on the Middle East and the Western Balkans, the latter in the presence of Štefan Füle, the European commissioner for enlargement. Indirect talks between Israelis and Palestinians are to start on Sunday with US mediation.